DIMARZIO VIRTUAL VINTAGE HEAVY BLUES 2, AIR ZONE AND TEXMEX

Hello everyone, I am going to share some sound clips of my newly installed pickups on my Strat. I hope you will enjoy these clips and make good use of them. Some notes first: the Virtual Vintage Heavy Blues 2 does scream in high gain pretty well but I didn't have time to capture it. I'll try to get the recording next time.

On the other hand, Air Zone definitely sounds fantastic! It doesn't sound similar to any other DiMarzio humbuckers I've tried, this is very unique. It's not a total screamer, it doesn't make your sound muddy, it has definition and good pick attack. I really like it, it's very versatile.

The combination of the VVHB2 and the standard TexMex is very amazing! I can get a very funky clean tone out of the combination and it really works very well!

Here are the clips:
VVHB2: Clean wet, Jazz comping, Dirty
VVHB2+TexMex: Funk
TexMex+AirZone: Funk
AirZone: Clean, Dirty

Hope you enjoy!
Cheers and God Bless :)

IDEALISTIC APPROACH OF BEING A "GOOD" GUITAR PLAYER

This post isn't going to be a review. Instead, I'm going to share with you something that I had in mind for some time that can hopefully expand the horizon of your guitar playing and tone chasing. It's about becoming a better guitarist. What's been driving me to write this post is actually the fact that in the last few days, I've been searching for a way to keep me motivated as a guitar player.

First of all, let's look at some of the top guitarists in the planet. They all have some things in common regardless of their genre. One of them is the willingness to learn; to be humble. They are willing to learn from other guitarists that inspires them and apply that knowledge into their playing. Take Paul Gilbert for example: he's considered a monster in the world of fast guitar playing, but to acknowledge the work of Johnny Cash in the realm of country guitar playing and applying it to his song writing techniques is just very humble and heart-warming; the result shows best during his live performances when he's able to balance between hard and soft songs.

John Petrucci also improved his technique by simply learning from other guitarists that had been playing with him together during G3 concerts. He's so used to alternate picking, he doesn't even consider putting bits of legatos in his playing; but by learning from other guitarists and acknowledging their great work really put Petrucci on the extra mile of his already amazing techniques.

Secondly, most of them are willing to learn many genres although they are known only for particular genres. Take Eric Johnson for example, he's known for his instrumental Rock and Blues but he can go far with some cool Jazz comping, Latin, Swings and Bossa Nova. Guthrie Govan perhaps is one of a few guitarists that can master many different extreme techniques ranging from shredding speed guitar to groovy funk rhythm playing. That kind of multi-genre thing really helps many guitarists to enhance their tone palette too! They will not just stuck with one boring overdrive sound; instead, they will investigate how to achieve many different and interesting sound for different types of moods.


Other thing is their view about their gears. This is a bit hard to apply for us because some of us are limited both financially and/or availability of gears. Andy Timmons really knows the details of his gear, he knows exactly every pedal, every tube in his amps, every cable, every speakers, everything! This really helps him to shape his unique tone that influence him to play in certain way that goes into his liking. On the other hand, some guitarists such as Mike Stern don't really go crazy with expensive gears but they rely on simple setups that are handy, don't require massive maintenance and produce consistent tones during concert.

More importantly, the main point that I want to say ultimately is try to rotate your concentration on different stuffs. Don't just concentrate on tone alone, don't just concentrate on techniques forever, don't just concentrate on gear all the time; try to circle between different stuffs. That way, you will avoid getting bored and you will also develop a bigger picture of being an overall good guitarists. Many young players concentrate only on playing as fast as you can as precise as you can; that's good but that's boring, if players start to develop ear for good tone, they will start tweaking and probably learning different techniques that suit different tones and that is exactly what many young guitar starters need!

I've just recently started to explore good Jazz tone. It requires me to get out of my good overdrive tone and start exploring ways to replicate a semi hollow guitar tone. It's not just about the tone, I'm also trying to learn how to comp in a modern Jazz music and it's really hard for me considering how comfortable I am in the world of Rock music. But the result is starting to show slowly and it's very rewarding to see yourselves develop some new and inspiring tone and techniques.

I hope you all enjoy this post. Reviews aren't going to be as much as before, but I promise to keep the blog interesting! Come back often and enjoy your time here.

Cheers and God bless :)

BASIC TIPS FOR GETTING THE RIGHT TONE

I can't get that guy's tone!! What on earth is wrong with my expensive gears???

Frustrating isn't it? You have all the nice pedals and what you think the best guitar on this earth and you still can't get your desired tone. You keep asking what's wrong with your setup, you got all the most expensive gears and you wonder why they don't make any good sound. Lots of people have been there before and today I want to share my perspective of basic guitar tone guide.

First thing first

Let's analyze all the factors that count toward the creation of your tone. Before we even do that, this is what I basically will do: ask yourself, what kind of sound are you aiming for? The best way to determine what kind of sound do you want is basically by having some references. It could be your guitar hero, your friends' tone or some guitar sound that you had heard before in your life.

Your guitar

After you answer that question, lets's start with the very first thing that you have to observe: your guitar. You can't nail Slash's signature sound using a Fender Stratocaster with single coil pickups. You can't nail Stevie Ray Vaughan's tone using an ESP loaded with EMG pickups. You can't play Metallica songs using a Telecaster.

Getting the right type of guitar will cover 50 to 90% of your tone. This is generally true, as long as your tone does not require huge amount of effect processing. Here are some of the famous guitar tones that are usually being used by guitarists everywhere:

1. Stratocaster sound: bright and clear, can be achieved using any guitar with single coils and ash/alder/basswood body.

2. Telecaster sound: super bright and twangy, can be achieved using Telecaster guitars with Telecaster pickups.

3. Fat humbucking tone: fat, round and warm. Can be achieved using anything with humbucker or P90 pickups regardless of the body type. Generally people will use a Les Paul with mahogany body but anything can do.

4. Jazz tone: similar with no. 3 but you can also use a semi-hollow guitars to get this beautiful tone.

Your signal path: Amp and Gain Box

You must choose your gear carefully to nail a desired tone. Not every nice pedal and expensive amplifier on this planet will do the trick. If you want a straight forward rock sound from the '70s and '80s, use a tube amplifier that's capable of producing a medium amount of overdrive and if you need an extra push, use a Tube Screamer. Using a hi-gain amplifier won't produce your desired tone. Adding a high-gain distortion pedal on a clean amp will also not work best.

If you're trying to nail heavy metal sound, use a Hi-Gain amp with medium overdrive setting and push the amp a bit harder using a gain box with a small amount of gain. You can also use a cleaner amp that's being pushed with distortion pedal as long as you cut the mid a little bit.

For a more classic Hendrix tone, use germanium fuzz pedals, they can replicate a vintage cranked up Marshall with fuzz face pedal.

Experiment a little bit in your local guitar store with some amplifiers and/or gain boxes. I suggest to start by hearing from well known brands such as Marshall and Fender for amplifiers and Tube Screamer TS-9 or 808 by Ibanez/Maxon for the gain box. If you know what you want, you don't have to buy those stuffs, there are lots of cheaper alternatives that you can search on the internet or by asking to someone; they will recreate your desired tone and they sound almost as good as the big names.

Other stuffs in your signal path: time based and modulation

Delay, Reverb, Chorus, Wah, Flanger, you name it...not everyone use them in their rigs and you have to be careful about choosing them. Guitarists tend to buy expensive stuffs but they don't really utilize them to the fullest; I personally use two delay pedals(one for short and one for long), a reverb and a chorus.

I won't suggest to overly use these effects since it will kind of ruin your original tone. Keep them as subtle as you can. Most guitar heroes don't over use them as well they wan't to preserve their original tone.

The thing that matters the most

Ultimately, no matter how good your gear is, you need to practice hard too! If you are currently aiming someone's tone, it's good to learn some tricks that the person usually do because the techniques are sometimes influenced by the gears.

I once fell into the trap of thinking that hi-gain can be used anywhere. It's so easy to play in highly distorted amp and I thought it sounds good. Once I heard how terrible it sounds, I immediately change my tone to further fit the style that I play. It uncovers all the bad habit that I usually do when I used hi-gain settings, but with practice, slowly you can develop your skill while at the same time improving your tone. It worked pretty good on me and my friends, so it should work for you too!

I hope this post would help you! Feel free to share it with everyone.

Cheers and God bless :)

GUITAR ARTISTS WITH GREAT TONE PT.I

No review today, but something different.
Today I want to share a little bit of my opinions about guitarists with great tone and great skills. They're all highly respected musicians and most of them are enjoying their careers either solo or with their bands. Most of them most people will already know because of their popularity but some of them are not really famous in the public but possess great tone and exceptional guitar skills. Some of them are my biggest influences but some of them I don't really check them out yet.

John Petrucci from Dream Theater

John Petrucci is famous for his work with Dream Theater, a progressive rock metal band that's currently growing rapidly in terms of popularity and exposure in the public.

His tone is coming mainly from his Ernie Ball Music Man John Petrucci signature guitar combined with Mesa Boogie Mark series amp. His EBMM JP guitar is usually loaded with DiMarzio LiquiFire and Crunch Lab humbuckers.

What sets him apart from the other guys in terms of tone is his ability to get a well defined fat warm super-driven notes during high speed picking with not too much muddiness when using highly saturated amp. The settings on his amp is not really surprising in the world of metal heads: scooped mids. Although he used scooped mids, his humbuckers are designed to work well on mid frequencies so he's kind of trying to balance between the amp and the pickups to get a well defined tone.

He definitely uses many FX pedals especially during live performances to create layering effects. He uses chorus, phaser, flanger, delay pedals and also overdrive pedals ranging from stock market models to hard-to-find vintage modded ones. However, his tone does not mainly come from his gear but it's mostly from his fingers.

Recommended album with great tone: Black Clouds and Silver Linings, Scenes From a Memory, Octavarium.

Stevie Ray Vaughan(R.I.P)

Almost every blues guitar fans know him and try to get his tone. He's a very famous Stratocaster user that really knows how to get a good tone out of it. The secret of his tone is nothing more than his Strat on a 6L6 based amp with mild drive and some boost with the Tube Screamer. In fact, if you have a Strat, a Fender Twin Reverb Amp and a Tube Screamer, you'll nail some of his famous tones instantly.

He used various gears and guitars but his main ones are the Fender Stratocaster '62 "Number One", a TS808 Tube Screamer and Fender Twin Reverb/Tweed Bassman Amps. Secret ingredient to his tone is super heavy gauge strings, probably around .013 and tuned it down half step to lesser the tension of the strings.

A lot of modern guitar players mentioned SRV as their tone inspiration because of his massive bluesy tone. Even gear manufacturers are trying to capture the sound generated from his gear and make it into a box or something. Thus, SRV is undeniably a very important figure in the world of guitar tone development.

Paul Gilbert from Racer X/Mr. Big/Solo

Every shredder must have heard Paul Gilbert's name at least once in their life. He's the shredder of the nineties, very famous with his work with Mr. Big and some people even know him while he's still in Racer X.

Starting from his solo album era around Silence Followed By A Deafening Roar, his tone is suddenly transformed and becomes very enjoyable.

His tone is not really the fat-warm type of tone, but it's very rich with articulation and definition. It's good for fast stuffs, chords and blues licks.

The secret of his tone during the nineties is definitely an Ibanez PGM with no tone knob loaded with PAF style pickups, particularly DiMarzios ranging from PAF Pro to the Tone Zone to even the Super Distortion high output pickups. The Ibanez is then plugged into a Marshall high gain amp. He get a very decent tone coming out from this combination.

Another secret to his tone is the picks that he used: he prefers a .60mm Dunlop Tortex to the standard small pointy Jazz picks that almost everyone uses. He angled his thin pick to get more treble and attack from the strings and it really is the biggest secret to almost nail his tone.

FYI, he didn't really care about tone until he started touring on G3 with Joe Satriani and John Petrucci. He now uses Marshall Vintage Modern, Ibanez Fireman loaded with DiMarzio Area series pickups, Majikbox Fuzz Universe overdrive pedal and some flanger, phaser delay and other boxes. He also used some Xotic pedals and he constantly changes his pedals depending on what he wants. Now he sounds much better than he was!

Definitely check out Silence Followed By A Deafening Roar, Fuzz Universe and his works with Mr. Big and Racer X. All of them contain Paul's mighty shred-ready tone.

Andy Timmons

He's relatively new to most guitar players but he's actually been around for quite some time in the guitar world. He played with metal band called Danger Danger around nineties. He's now currently a solo artist and has his own band called Andy Timmons band.

The secret of his tone comes mainly from his signature Ibanez AT series loaded with DiMarzio Cruisers and AT Humbuckers/Seymour Duncan JB plugged into Mesa Boogie Lonestar/Stiletto Deuce/Transatlantic 30. Other important part of his tone is the delay FX units that he uses and also his gain box. He loves the Echoplex tape echo very much, but he prefers to use a box to replicate the effects during live performance by using an EXH Memory Man or sometimes using rack type delay units. For his gain box, he relies mostly on his signature Xotic BB Preamp. He used Ibanez Tube Screamer sometime in early 2000 to get that bluesy tone much like SRV's with more gain. He's also known as a Telecaster guy and he also played an SG although we haven't see him playing live with his SG.

He's been respected very much as a guitarist and also as a tone chaser. He tried various pieces of gear and experimented with all of them to achieve a good sound. Unlike any other Ibanez endorser artists, Andy prefers the sound of a guitar with lower output pickups and cool vintage-style hardware and look.

Definitely check out his new album Resolution and his compilation That Was Then, This Was Now. Don't expect anything too shreddy from his songs but he has couple of tricks under his sleeves just in case someone needs shreddy stuff!

Stay tuned for PART II !!

Cheers and God bless :)